<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: great meta-book on perl
Review: Fun book, of 3 perl metabooks (others Hall/Schwartz Efficient Perl (everybody shd read) and Brown's Debugging Perl (I haven't read much) ). There's "35 best hackers", good bibliographies/TOC index could be more detailed) and the 1st 100 pages had me thinking authors were watching my perl screwups over my shoulder. One wish list item: more info on vim, gnu/xemacs (getting syntax coloring/tabbing right on NT, compiling .els)$1MM Question: can these books keep perl growing? Python,ruby don't seem to need these debugging/dev practices books. Another question: can any books on perl/python stay up to date? Since this came out: komodo (you are trying to get your boss to pay $250 subscription, aren't you?), Visual perl/python, python DBI, 3 or 4 more Oreillys, etc. etc.
Rating:
Summary: great meta-book on perl
Review: Fun book, of 3 perl metabooks (others Hall/Schwartz Efficient Perl (everybody shd read) and Brown's Debugging Perl (I haven't read much) ). There's "35 best hackers", good bibliographies/TOC index could be more detailed) and the 1st 100 pages had me thinking authors were watching my perl screwups over my shoulder. One wish list item: more info on vim, gnu/xemacs (getting syntax coloring/tabbing right on NT, compiling .els) $1MM Question: can these books keep perl growing? Python,ruby don't seem to need these debugging/dev practices books. Another question: can any books on perl/python stay up to date? Since this came out: komodo (you are trying to get your boss to pay... subscription, aren't you?), Visual perl/python, python DBI, 3 or 4 more Oreillys, etc. etc.
Rating:
Summary: Super advice for Perl programmers, and others
Review: I'm tremendously pleased with Perl Debugged. It's half a book about Perl debugging, and half a book with more general advice, all pleasantly blended together. Peter and Ed take you on an unrivaled tour of the ups and downs of Perl debugging. It's sort of like Effective Perl Programming's "Debugging" chapter except hugely and brilliantly expanded. It's comprehensive and imaginative without being pedantic. It covers the Perl debugger (of course), it covers the different types of errors you'll encounter in Perl programs, it covers debugging strategies, and (very important) it covers the always-icky topic of debugging CGI programs. And some other topics .... Even experienced Perl programmers will enjoy reading this book. You may think you've seen it all but I guarantee you that you haven't seen all of the examples of weirdness featured herein. It reminds me of Kon and Bal's debugging "brainteasers" in Apple's now defunct Develop magazine. I *highly* recommend Perl Debugged to anyone at the beginning or intermediate stage in Perl programming, particularly to programmers who have less than 2-4 years of debugging experience in general. An experienced programmer, on the other hand, will want to buy a copy (copies?) to browse and then hand to his junior co-worker(s) with stern instructions to "read first, code later." (Reminds me of the time I bought Bugs in Writing.) Apparently the authors have a way with words. The prose is unusually good--not just by the standards of technical books--colorful, extremely clear, and enjoyable to read. (The illustrations by Peter's sister-in-law are great.) About the only thing that "bugs" me is the authors' use of "semantical" in preference to "semantic."
Rating:
Summary: Super advice for Perl programmers, and others
Review: I'm tremendously pleased with Perl Debugged. It's half a book about Perl debugging, and half a book with more general advice, all pleasantly blended together. Peter and Ed take you on an unrivaled tour of the ups and downs of Perl debugging. It's sort of like Effective Perl Programming's "Debugging" chapter except hugely and brilliantly expanded. It's comprehensive and imaginative without being pedantic. It covers the Perl debugger (of course), it covers the different types of errors you'll encounter in Perl programs, it covers debugging strategies, and (very important) it covers the always-icky topic of debugging CGI programs. And some other topics .... Even experienced Perl programmers will enjoy reading this book. You may think you've seen it all but I guarantee you that you haven't seen all of the examples of weirdness featured herein. It reminds me of Kon and Bal's debugging "brainteasers" in Apple's now defunct Develop magazine. I *highly* recommend Perl Debugged to anyone at the beginning or intermediate stage in Perl programming, particularly to programmers who have less than 2-4 years of debugging experience in general. An experienced programmer, on the other hand, will want to buy a copy (copies?) to browse and then hand to his junior co-worker(s) with stern instructions to "read first, code later." (Reminds me of the time I bought Bugs in Writing.) Apparently the authors have a way with words. The prose is unusually good--not just by the standards of technical books--colorful, extremely clear, and enjoyable to read. (The illustrations by Peter's sister-in-law are great.) About the only thing that "bugs" me is the authors' use of "semantical" in preference to "semantic."
Rating:
Summary: Great Perl Tips Presented With Humor
Review: This book is a must for perl programmers. Throughout the book, the authors develop 46 "Perls of Wisdom". These guidelines will help you write code with fewer bugs and help you fix bugs when they do come up - and they will! I tend to enjoy software books with a little humor to them, and this one fits the bill. Here are the highlights from the book: Ch. 1- Gives some background on the perl language and good tips on accessing the documentation for various parts of perl on various platforms. Ch. 2- Kind of a touchy/feely chapter; however, there is wisdom in it. It helps you understand how your attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors affect your code. Don't skip it. Ch. 3- This chapter gives you some good advice on how to avoid bugs in your program. One of these is documentation. I've found that documenting something makes you think about things you otherwise might not have. Ch. 4- Gives some common sources of bugs in perl including syntax, precedence, and regular expressions. Ch. 5- How to get formatted printouts of variables in your using Data::Dumper. This is a step up from print statements, and is easy to use. Ch. 6- Includes good information on testing your code and the perl modules available to assit you in test harnesses and coverage tests. Ch. 7- This is the gem of the book. It is a step by step guide to using the perl debugger. If reading man pages makes your head hurt, you will find this tutorial much more user friendly. Ch. 8- An excellent chapter on interpreting the syntax error reports that perl spits out. Ch. 9- The runtime exception counterpart to the previous chapter. It contains a discussion of perl exception handling vs. that of java or c++. Ch. 10- This chapter deals with the tough topic of code that compiles and runs, but gives the wrong answer. It gives techinques for seeing how perl interpreted your code. Ch. 11- This chapter gives you advice for improving performance using the Benchmark module. Ch. 12- A nice comparison to other languages. If you are fluent in another programming language, it is helpful to know how the it compares to perl. The examples in this book are what make it the most useful. They show you how to use various perl modules to make your code better. Being new to the language, I wasn't even aware that some of these modules existed. Unless you are a perl master already, you should find plenty of useful information in Perl Debugged.
Rating:
Summary: Great Perl Tips Presented With Humor
Review: This book is a must for perl programmers. Throughout the book, the authors develop 46 "Perls of Wisdom". These guidelines will help you write code with fewer bugs and help you fix bugs when they do come up - and they will! I tend to enjoy software books with a little humor to them, and this one fits the bill. Here are the highlights from the book: Ch. 1- Gives some background on the perl language and good tips on accessing the documentation for various parts of perl on various platforms. Ch. 2- Kind of a touchy/feely chapter; however, there is wisdom in it. It helps you understand how your attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors affect your code. Don't skip it. Ch. 3- This chapter gives you some good advice on how to avoid bugs in your program. One of these is documentation. I've found that documenting something makes you think about things you otherwise might not have. Ch. 4- Gives some common sources of bugs in perl including syntax, precedence, and regular expressions. Ch. 5- How to get formatted printouts of variables in your using Data::Dumper. This is a step up from print statements, and is easy to use. Ch. 6- Includes good information on testing your code and the perl modules available to assit you in test harnesses and coverage tests. Ch. 7- This is the gem of the book. It is a step by step guide to using the perl debugger. If reading man pages makes your head hurt, you will find this tutorial much more user friendly. Ch. 8- An excellent chapter on interpreting the syntax error reports that perl spits out. Ch. 9- The runtime exception counterpart to the previous chapter. It contains a discussion of perl exception handling vs. that of java or c++. Ch. 10- This chapter deals with the tough topic of code that compiles and runs, but gives the wrong answer. It gives techinques for seeing how perl interpreted your code. Ch. 11- This chapter gives you advice for improving performance using the Benchmark module. Ch. 12- A nice comparison to other languages. If you are fluent in another programming language, it is helpful to know how the it compares to perl. The examples in this book are what make it the most useful. They show you how to use various perl modules to make your code better. Being new to the language, I wasn't even aware that some of these modules existed. Unless you are a perl master already, you should find plenty of useful information in Perl Debugged.
Rating:
Summary: Great Perl Tips Presented With Humor
Review: This book is a must for perl programmers. Throughout the book, the authors develop 46 "Perls of Wisdom". These guidelines will help you write code with fewer bugs and help you fix bugs when they do come up - and they will! I tend to enjoy software books with a little humor to them, and this one fits the bill. Here are the highlights from the book: Ch. 1- Gives some background on the perl language and good tips on accessing the documentation for various parts of perl on various platforms. Ch. 2- Kind of a touchy/feely chapter; however, there is wisdom in it. It helps you understand how your attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors affect your code. Don't skip it. Ch. 3- This chapter gives you some good advice on how to avoid bugs in your program. One of these is documentation. I've found that documenting something makes you think about things you otherwise might not have. Ch. 4- Gives some common sources of bugs in perl including syntax, precedence, and regular expressions. Ch. 5- How to get formatted printouts of variables in your using Data::Dumper. This is a step up from print statements, and is easy to use. Ch. 6- Includes good information on testing your code and the perl modules available to assit you in test harnesses and coverage tests. Ch. 7- This is the gem of the book. It is a step by step guide to using the perl debugger. If reading man pages makes your head hurt, you will find this tutorial much more user friendly. Ch. 8- An excellent chapter on interpreting the syntax error reports that perl spits out. Ch. 9- The runtime exception counterpart to the previous chapter. It contains a discussion of perl exception handling vs. that of java or c++. Ch. 10- This chapter deals with the tough topic of code that compiles and runs, but gives the wrong answer. It gives techinques for seeing how perl interpreted your code. Ch. 11- This chapter gives you advice for improving performance using the Benchmark module. Ch. 12- A nice comparison to other languages. If you are fluent in another programming language, it is helpful to know how the it compares to perl. The examples in this book are what make it the most useful. They show you how to use various perl modules to make your code better. Being new to the language, I wasn't even aware that some of these modules existed. Unless you are a perl master already, you should find plenty of useful information in Perl Debugged.
<< 1 >>
| 
